“Schur you would have. You love quilting and you worked in a shop before you opened yours. You’re a born businesswoman. It was only a matter of time before you did it. I just mentioned when the space came open.”
“You did more than that and you know it.”
He shrugged. “I’d do anything for you.” He reached for her hand. “I love you, Hannah. It’s time I told you that.”
Emotion swamped her. “I thought…I’d hoped you did. I love you, too.”
They kissed again, and Hannah knew she would remember this moment forever.
“We’d better go,” he said at last. “Drive us to your house and I’ll help you unhitch the buggy.”
“There’s no need—”
“Drive us to your house. Allow me to be a gentleman.”
“Then you’ll have to walk home.”
“I know.”
“Perhaps I’ll be courteous and walk you home.”
“Nee,” he told her with some firmness.
She turned back to face the road. “Giddyap!” she called, and Daisy began pulling the buggy again.
He got his way. Well, she let him. She could be just as stubborn as he could, but she didn’t want to argue with him on such a night. So she let him unhitch the buggy and put Daisy up in her stall, and they kissed one last time. She watched him walk down the drive and head up the road to his house.
As she carried the flowers he’d given her up to her bedroom, she knew they had taken a new step in their relationship that night.
She wasn’t schur where it would lead. But it warmed her heart to think about it.
Chapter Eleven
Emma was sitting in the booth they often chose at their favorite pizza restaurant when Eli walked in. John sat on her lap, looking wide-eyed at everything going around him.
When Eli walked up and John caught sight of him, the boppli gave him a wide, gummy smile. “Hello, Emma, hello, John,” he said and then his heart sank as he watched John’s smile fade, his little face looking puzzled. “John, how are you, buddy?”
John puckered up and began crying.
“Oh, sweetie, what’s the matter?” Emma crooned, rocking him in her arms. “That’s Eli. You remember Eli.”
But John continued to cry. Emma dug in the diaper bag that sat on the seat next to her. “Here, here’s your pacifier.”
John snuffled, accepted the pacifier and sucked at it while tears ran down his cheeks. He just stared at Eli as if he’d never seen him before.
“I don’t know why he’s acting this way.”
“Maybe he’s tired.”
“He had a long nap and he doesn’t usually go to bed for another hour or two.”
Eli knew little about bopplin. Most Amish kinner grew up helping take care of others in the familye but he and Gideon had been the only two.
“Maybe he’s hungerich?”
She shook her head. “I fed him just before we came.”
Zoe, the owner’s teenaged daughter, came to take their order. She stared at Emma for a moment. “Well, I haven’t seen you in here in quite a while. And who’s this?”
John perked up at the attention and smiled at her. Emma made a fast grab for the pacifier as it slipped from his mouth.
“This is my son, John.”
“He’s precious.” She glanced at Eli, started to say something, then bit her lip. She pulled out her order pad instead. “Now, what can I get you two?”
They ordered their usual—a large thin crust with everything but anchovies and two soft drinks.
“I’ll put this in and be right back with your drinks. Anything for the little man?”
“He’ll have a calzone and a brew,” Eli said.
Emma chuckled and shook her head. “No thanks, Zoe.” She watched Zoe walk over and give the order to the cook. “Well, that was awkward.”
“I should have thought about that when I suggested this place,” he said, frowning.
“I suppose it’s going to happen.” She looked down at John then at him. “You said you wanted to talk.”
Zoe arrived with their drinks. Eli waited until she walked away to respond.
“We had some good times here, didn’t we?” he asked her, looking around the restaurant. Booths were painted a bright red, and candles stuck in empty Chianti bottles sat on the tables. Posters of Italian specialties the restaurant served decorated the walls. An Italian opera played over the stereo system. It was a fun, affordable place that both the Englisch and the Amish patronized.
She nodded. “We did.”
“I looked for you, Emma,” he said quietly. “Looked for you for the longest time. I wasn’t prepared for what you told me, and I’ll be the first to say I was a jerk. I want to make it up to you and John.”
She eyed him warily. “How do you want to do that?”
He reached for her hand. “I want us to get married. I want us to be a familye. I started to tell you that when Rebecca interrupted us.”
“Here we go,” Zoe cut in, placing the pizza on a stand in the center of the table. “Be careful, it’s hot!” She dropped a stack of paper napkins on the table and left.
Eli wasn’t thrilled with the interruption but took it in stride. He served them both a slice of pizza then frowned. “Should we get a highchair for John?”
“He’ll be fine. I can eat this way.” She held John in the crook of her left arm, picked up the slice of pizza with her right hand, and bit in. “Mmm. Gut but hot.” She put the slice down on her plate. “I should have let it cool off a little.” She sipped her drink.
He blew on his slice then took a bite. “Ouch. You’re right.” Well, what was a little burn on the roof of your mouth when the pizza was so gut?
“How are you doing here?” Zoe stopped by to ask.
John bounced hard on Emma’s lap and threw out his hands. He knocked the drink Emma was holding and soda splashed down the front of her dress. Emma gasped.
“Oh my!” Zoe exclaimed. She grabbed some of the napkins and mopped up the spill, then grabbed some more from another table and handed them to Emma to blot the moisture from her dress. “Why don’t you go use the hand dryer in the women’s restroom to dry your dress?”
“I think I’ll do that.” Emma slid from the booth and, before Eli knew what was happening, thrust John into his arms.
“Well, this is a surprise” he told John, as Emma hurried away.
They stared at each other. Please, please, don’t start crying, Eli prayed. He shifted the kind to sit on his lap and debated picking up a slice of pizza but decided he’d better not. He figured he was much less experienced than Emma at doing two things at once when one involved holding a kind…and the consequences of dropping John were too great.
“So, John, help me out here,” he said conversationally. “How am I going to get your mudder to talk to me about getting back together if we keep getting interrupted?”
John frowned and babbled.
“Hmm. A nice drive in the country in the buggy sounds like a really gut idea,” he said. “Maybe we could try that this evening after we eat. If you could promise not to spill anything else on your mudder, allrecht?”
“Eli.”
He looked up. An attractive Englisch blonde stood by the booth smiling at him. “Sally.”
“Yes, Sally.” She tapped her foot as she studied him. “Haven’t heard from you.”
“I’ve been…busy,” he said lamely.
“I see. Who’s this?”
“This is my son, John.”
“You never mentioned that you were married. That little detail seemed to have slipped from our conversation when you asked me out.”
“I’m not married.”
“But—”
“It’s a long story,” he said, glancing around.
“I see.”
He didn’t know what else to say. Except maybe it was time to start making things right. “I’m sorry, Sally. I’m…involved with someone now.”
Before he could say anything else
, Emma returned to the table. The two women stood there staring at each other until Eli spoke up. “Uh, Emma, this is Sally. Sally, Emma.”
Sally didn’t bother to say anything, just turned on her heel and walked off.
Emma held out her arms for John but then didn’t take her seat.
“I can explain.”
“I bet.”
“Emma, please sit down and finish your supper,” he said. “Please,” he repeated when she hesitated.
She finally sat.
“Months after you left, I finally began dating again. I didn’t think you were ever coming back. Sally and I went out a couple times. She didn’t mean anything to me.” He stared at his plate, then looked up at her. “I think we were both just kind of curious about the way each of us lived.”
Zoe set a fresh drink on the table in front of Emma. “Is everything okay? You two aren’t eating.”
“We’re fine, thanks,” Eli assured her. He waited until Zoe left them and then picked up his slice of pizza. “John and I talked while you were gone. He had a gut idea.”
“He did?”
He felt encouraged that she seemed to be trying not to smile. “Ya. He thinks we should go for a ride in the buggy and get away from all these interruptions.”
Emma glanced down at John as he bounced with enthusiasm. The kind never seemed to sit still these days. “You think so, huh?” She looked at Eli. “How did you know r-i-d-e is one of his favorite words?”
“Isn’t it every guy’s favorite word?”
* * *
Emma couldn’t help thinking how different this buggy ride was from the last one she’d taken with Eli. Back then he’d been all about taking her for a romantic drive.
Emma had been in love with him for years. He was twenty-four and graduated from schul years before her, so she’d thought that he had never really paid attention to her. The day she’d turned eighteen she’d walked up to him after church and asked him out to lunch. He’d been surprised. She’d told him she was tired of waiting for him to notice her.
“I’ve noticed,” he said. “I’ve noticed you’re too young for me.”
“I’m not too young. Unless you feel too old,” she’d retorted. “Well, if you’re not interested, never mind.”
She’d turned to walk away but then he’d grasped her arm. She’d stared at his hand and he’d dropped it. They both knew a man wasn’t supposed to touch a maedel. It definitely wasn’t a gut idea standing on the front porch of the house where church services had just been held and people were coming and going.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll go to lunch.”
“Never mind.”
“One minute you want to go, the next you don’t. Talk about contrary.”
She smiled inwardly at the frustration she heard in his voice. “Not contrary. I’m just worth a nicer invitation.”
“Emma, would you like to go to lunch?” he asked.
“If you’re schur you can eat it with your teeth clenched like that,” she told him with saccharine sweetness.
“I’ll get the buggy.”
Emma smiled at the memory. She’d never been so bold with a man, but she knew what she wanted and she’d wanted Eli to pay attention to her.
Eli and Gideon were zwillingbopplin, handsome twins who were any maedel’s dream. Tall, dark-haired, with dreamy deep-blue eyes. But they were different as night and day. Gideon was quiet and studious and had been interested in Hannah for years. Emma had no doubt that they’d end up married one day.
But Eli was the man she was interested in. Schur, she knew he loved to flirt and had taken many a maedel out for a ride in his buggy. Few could resist that mischievous glint in those blue eyes or that cocky grin of his. His charm was legend.
Well, they’d gone for that lunch and then they’d kept on seeing each other. Turned out that Eli liked that Emma wasn’t a shy maedel who was willing to mold herself to a man to get married. They bonded over the knowledge that they were both feeling a little constricted by the rules of their community.
Or rather, the rules of their dats.
Eli’s dat wasn’t as strict as Emma’s. Then again, who could be as strict as her dat? She’d been surprised he’d let her see Eli but suspected it was because Eli was a successful farmer and more mature than buwe her age.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Eli said now. “You allrecht?”
“I’m fine.” She leaned back against the seat and enjoyed the gentle motion of the buggy rolling along the road. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“About when we first started seeing each other.”
He shot her a grin. “You were different from the other maedels.”
“I know.”
“I liked that.”
She couldn’t help it. She smiled. “I know.” She heard John stir in his sleep in the back seat and her smile faded. “We moved too fast, let our feelings take us to a place we shouldn’t have gone.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“Nee?”
“Nee.”
“Not even when I show up with the result of a night that shouldn’t have happened?”
Eli pulled the buggy over to the side of the road and faced her. “Nee. Are you?”
“I can’t be when I look at him,” she admitted after a long moment. “But life feels pretty complicated right now.”
She resisted when he tried to take her hand. “I didn’t stop loving you, Emma. Did you stop loving me? Has your heart turned hard against me?”
“No, it hasn’t turned hard,” she said after a moment. “But it’s not just me I have to think about now.”
“We moved too quickly before. But I don’t see how we can go slow this time.”
“Maybe not. But it’s hard for me. I’m afraid of being hurt again.”
“You came back,” he reminded her. “That tells me something.” He rubbed the knuckles of her hand.
“I came back to make you take responsibility for John.”
“If that was all you wanted you could have written me from Ohio.”
He was right. She stared out at the darkened field.
“Maybe you’re not ready to say you still love me,” he said slowly. “But I think you want more, Emma. And I want more. Maybe we can start there.”
A car drove past, too fast, and the wind shook the buggy.
“Reckless driver,” he said. He pulled his hand back and got the buggy back onto the road.
“I’m going to work for Hannah,” she told him.
“Really?”
“Ya. Just part-time. I don’t know how long I can afford to stay at the motel.”
“We’ll work something out.”
She saw him glance at John in the back seat.
“I guess we should get started back so you can put him to bed.” He did a U-turn and headed back to town. “I’ll come by and pick you both up for supper again tomorrow. This time we’ll find someplace a little more private and talk some more.”
“Allrecht.”
He parked at the motel and insisted on taking the sleeping John from the seat in the back and carrying him to her door. She unlocked the door, took John from him, and was surprised when he kissed her cheek and didn’t press her for more.
“Sleep well.”
“You too.”
She watched him start for the buggy. “Eli?”
He turned. “Ya?”
“Where did you get the car seat?”
“Hannah’s schweschder Linda loaned it to me.”
“Danki for thinking of it.” Some Amish didn’t believe in them in their buggies. But she appreciated Eli thinking of John’s safety.
“I care for John, Emma. Even if he’s not schur he wants me for his dat yet.”
She watched him walk back to the buggy and then went inside, locked the door, and lay John down in the crib beside the bed. Then she got ready for bed.
But as she lay there in the dark waiting for sleep to claim her, she found herself thinkin
g about what he’d said tonight. Was he right that she hadn’t come back just to make him take responsibility for John? Did she want more with Eli? And even if she did it wasn’t going to be easy. They’d have to talk to the bishop, ask for forgiveness, be granted permission to marry outside the traditional marriage season, which took place after harvest.
And their community would know everything. She’d been turned away by her eldres. What would happen when other people in their community found out she was back with a boppli? John was little now, but as he got older she didn’t want him treated differently. He was precious. She didn’t want him to feel any shame.
She sighed. Life was indeed complicated, as she’d told Eli. Very, very complicated.
Well, she could have stayed in Ohio and not faced any of this. She could have continued to live the lie that she was a widow. Maybe at some point she’d have fallen in love with someone and had a dat for John and made a family with him.
But Eli was right. She’d come back here because she still loved him.
Would it be enough for what she’d face?
She tossed and turned for hours before she fell asleep.
Chapter Twelve
Hannah folded the wedding ring quilt, laid it into a box lined with tissue paper, and closed the top. She lovingly tied it with a silver ribbon.
“I’m so glad I stopped in,” her customer said as she watched Emma tuck the box into a shopping bag. “I’ve been wanting something extra special as a wedding present for my niece and this is it.”
“I’m so happy we had what you wanted.” And she was going to make Sarah Byler very happy when she let her know that the quilt had sold. “I hope your niece has a wonderful wedding and many happy years with her husband.”
The woman patted her hand. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to mention your shop to my friends.”
Hannah had just enough time to call Sarah and give her the gut news before several customers came in.
The morning flew by, and before she knew it Emma arrived with John for her afternoon shift.
“There’s my favorite guy,” Hannah cooed at John as she took him from his mudder’s arms so that Emma could put her purse in the back room.
“I thought Gideon was your favorite guy,” Emma said, laughing as John reached eagerly for Hannah.
The Amish Baby Finds a Home Page 8
